Chapter 781: Worms in Snake Meat

Xi led the Soldiers on a search, and while walking along the road, he would from time to time use his sharpened, hollow Iron pipe to thrust forcefully into the ground, then extract the soil from within to observe it, seeing what lay beneath the sandy ground—whether it was soil or more sand and stone, and at the same time, whether it was sufficiently moist was also within his consideration.

However, after walking for a long time and taking many samples, none met the standards he desired; this place would do for a Pasture after a few years of tending, but as for farmland, there was no need to even consider it, so he would just skip this place.

Thus, he quickened his pace and went to that place where the Grass had already turned mostly yellow and withered, with only the roots still carrying a hint of green; the area of the land was extremely vast, and looking at the round black dung balls on the ground, along with piles upon piles of large, now somewhat hollow, web-like excrement, he knew that there were still many wild beasts here; after all, how could there be any wild beasts that would not like such a large area of grassland?

The sparse trees here were particularly conspicuous, mostly Willow and Poplar; here, Poplar and Willow were the toughest tree species. The Willow leaves had already turned yellow, some carrying a hint of red, and were falling off in large areas; the Poplar leaves had all turned golden, and under the reflection of the grassland and the Heaven, they looked exceptionally beautiful.

But beautiful as they were, it was impossible for much vegetation to remain here; if this place could truly be used as farmland, those trees would instead become an obstacle. Of course, one could not completely and absolutely negate the existence of trees in farmland; although they would compete for the nutrients of the crops, they could also provide a bit of shade in the summer.

The time of harvest was also the hottest time of the year; deep summer had not yet entered autumn, and farmers, in order to save time, were unwilling to go home to rest or eat, basically eating directly in the fields, and they would not sleep either, just sitting down to catch their breath was enough.

At this time, if there were a sufficiently wide Willow tree, it would be the best shelter. Poplar trees were too tall and too straight to provide enough shade, so in the farmland of Huaxia, there were many large Willow trees, some even planted by human hands; as for these here, it would depend on who they were eventually assigned to, as everything was decided by the owner of the land.

Having only caught scorpions and poisonous insects for one night, there was still no sign of any great success; in the grassland here, there were definitely a huge number of poisonous insects hidden, and there were likely no shortage of snakes either. For his own safety, Xi decided to burn the wasteland.

The grassland here was still far from the forest, with some relatively barren sandy land still separating them in the middle, and plus there was no wind now, so he was not afraid of burning the mountain forest. Thus, Xi boldly lit the fire, and after the flames rose slightly, relying on the oiliness of the wormwood, the fire began to crackle and then spread rapidly.

The smoke and heat waves forced Xi and the others to watch from afar, not daring to get too close; the grassland, which was almost boundless at a glance, would certainly take a long time to burn.

However, the soil quality and water content were certainly about the same; one leaf falling signifies autumn, and Xi only needed to collect soil samples from a few places to determine it. Moreover, the ash produced by burning was also a good fertilizer, but since it was burned now, the wild Grass seeds from other places would all fly here when blown by the wind, and they would only grow more vigorously next year.

The fire slowly spread into the distance, and the area closest to them had now become a patch of black soil, with some sturdy grass stems still sticking up that had not been completely burned, but this was of no great consequence; the ground still had some residual heat, but now safety could be completely guaranteed.

Under the great fire, it was impossible for scorpions or snakes to exist; if they were unlucky, they might even become ghosts under the fire. The pheasants and rabbits here were numerous, and they had all built nests and settled in the grass; later, they could go over and search to see if there might be any unexpected gains.

Xi thrust the Iron pipe down forcefully until he felt the depth was sufficient, then pulled it out, and used a stick to poke the other end, and a whole soil sample came out.

Xi squatted down, used his hands to turn over the soil, and looked at the surrounding terrain before saying: "On the surface, this is a fairly thick layer of soil, it just feels yellowish, it certainly won't be too fertile, and it contains some fine sand. Fortunately, the problem isn't big, there isn't even a fraction of sand in the soil, but after about a foot or so down, it turns back into sand, and it's a bit reddish, just like in other places."

He squeezed the soil sample again: "The water content is actually okay, there's no problem with farming. Anyway, there's no hope of growing Rice here; not to mention the lack of water, this climate itself isn't a place for growing Rice. If we grow wheat, it should be no problem, and Millet might grow the best."

Although the few Soldiers did not understand these things, they still heard about seven or eight out of ten: "So you mean, the land here can be used for farming, right?"

Xi nodded affirmatively: "The samples taken here now are no problem, it's just that the soil layer is still a bit too thin; if there were a heavy rain, I'm afraid the soil would be washed thinner. We need to walk further in to see if the soil layer inside will be thicker."

However, the fire had not completely spread over yet, and an occasional gust of wind blowing back would choke them with a face full of smoke, so they could not be in a hurry now; they could only walk slowly inside and search along the way to see if there was anything burned to death that they could take back to add to their meal.

But they actually found something; a Soldier saw something wriggling in the ash, and after drawing his Knife and going over, he discovered it was a snake that had not completely died, but it was already unable to attack anyone. So, with a flick of his hand, the snake's head was chopped off, yet the snake's body was still wriggling.

Upholding the safest disposal method, he used his Knife to dig a small pit in the ground and buried the snake's head inside; this was the safest disposal method. Only then did he pick up the snake body, not feeling disgusted at all, and happily took it to his teammates.

"Look, a snake, and it's quite big too; we can add a meal when we go back. The taste of this thing is very fragrant; I can smell the fragrance now."

Everyone laughed and echoed; although they were not the ones who found it, they would certainly still be able to get a share, and since they could find the first one, it meant there were more snakes, so there was no need to worry about having nothing to eat.

Xi was also beaming with joy, but upon seeing the white part of the snake meat, he suddenly felt a bit nauseated, and then said to the Soldier: "Just throw this snake away, it can't be eaten."

The Soldier was puzzled: "Why? It's not the first time we've eaten it, the snake head has been chopped off, it's not poisonous."

Xi pointed to the cross-section: "There are worms, so disgusting."

The Soldier hurriedly looked over and saw that there was indeed a long, thin worm wriggling on the cross-section, with the intention of crawling out, which scared him into throwing it away immediately.

Parasites were already a well-known thing in Huaxia; having worms in the stomach was not right. They even knew that worms grew in the stomachs of cows and sheep; when they had worms, the cows and sheep would not only fail to gain weight, but might even die, but they never expected that worms would also grow in the stomachs of snakes.